Chapter 380 - Enter The Tree Dungeon
"So, are you two still going inside the dungeon?"
I asked Lina and Tia if they still want to go inside.
Sunny has evolved into a big sunflower. Wait, she's shrinking and returning back to her original form.
Since it's impossible for her to carry me again, I jumped from the flower head and landed on the ground.
Sunny has grown so powerful that she can shot a light element magic attack and destroyed a lot of monsters in one shot that Lina suddenly became advanced level mage already. That mean there's nothing for them to gain inside the dungeon.
As for Tia, well… she's going to be Lina's summon from now on. And if Lina told her to move to the werewolves' settlement, they will do it.
"I won't go. I'll try to get to know Sunny better now. And I will make a contract with Elestias. No, I'll call you Tia as well from now on," Lina said.
"You can call me whatever you want, Master. I can't believe I will be in the same rank as the great Yellowsun. As your summon. I…no, we the elves are willing to do anything you say," Tia said as she kneeled down in front of Lina.
"…should I take them to the Werewolves' settlement to farm?" Lina asked me.
"That would be great. And you will be worried if we left them alone, right?" I said.
"Master, you can go explore the dungeon now. I'll stay here with Sunny and Tia," Lina said.
"You should quickly make a contract with Tia. I'll grab one Peary-fruit for you. I hope you can still grow as a summoner and make one, or even two more monsters to be your summons," I said.
Getting two more monsters mean that she will be at Master level. That would be great.
I don't know her monsters' overall strength previously. Sunny was good, but not that strong. Even Elsie can defeat her easily. But now, even when Elsie can see everything, she will be in trouble if they fight.
And Elsie herself is an All-seeing Eye monster. Her strength is in her vision, and not her combat ability. Good thing Sunny become so powerful after evolution. Though Sunny seems to prefer her old form as that is the form she's using right now.
She's dancing right now. She must be very happy to evolve. Thank me you little sunflower! I gave you a bit of my Aura!
Good thing she didn't suck too much or I will be in trouble if I can't use Aura inside the dungeon.
After that, it's the High Elf, Tia.
…I don't know her strength, but at least she's an intellectual monster that we can communicate with, and also the leader of her species.
Even if she doesn't have powerful combat ability, her plant magic should be able to help Sunny a lot. And they will be helpful as farmers so we can have unlimited supply of crops.
I waited until Lina finished making contract with Tia, and after I gave her one Pear-y Fruit, I and the three monsters entered the dungeon.
As expected, the monsters inside are zombies. Not elves.
Well, since the elves village is right outside this dungeon, the monsters are actually elf zombies. So, it's still elf.
"Urgh… the smell of corpses," Shelia said as she has the best smelling sense among us.
"Sniff… it's smelly indeed. Shelia, if you don't want to come, you may leave. We have seen how the elves are, so we can't expect the monsters inside to be powerful," I said.
"No. I can't just give up from the smell. I also need to train to endure it. Who knows if someone will use smell to attack us werewolves in the future?" Shelia said.
"Good. At least cover your nose with Blobbies if you can't take it. Victoria!"
"Aye-aye, sir!"
As soon as I call her name, Victoria creates clones of herself, and those Blobbies transformed into a face mask for each of us. Except for Victoria herself.
We walked deeper into the dungeon and finally see an elf zombie. When the zombie noticed me, it suddenly turns its head toward me, and started running.
Probably since it's an elf, its movement is nimble. Though it moves toward me directly without a strategy so I can easily predict its movement and kill it with one slash of Victokatana.
Since my goal is to improve my summoning element, Spot is not allowed to fight, and I can only use Victoria or Blobbies as weapon. And Shelia is free to do anything she wants.
"Hmm… they are easy to defeat. Or maybe because the elves who died recently are much weaker. That mean the deeper we go in, the more likely we fought older elves. We may end up fighting against Tia's father who is an elf warrior," I said.
"You may be right. And if he's as strong as what Spot said, you might be able to increase your level to advanced," Victoria said.
This tree is so big. There might be more than just elf zombies. Though since the elves can live peacefully right outside the dungeon, I doubt they are strong enough to be a problem to me. Though if they actually died over five hundred years ago, they might be difficult to fight.
"Whoa, there are lots of them coming. Shelia, you ready?"
"…I'll try to not touch them," Shelia replied.
Right, they are zombies.
It was commonly known that once they bit you, you will become one of them. Not touching them is the best choice when fighting them.
I can do it easily since I use Victoria as weapon. And as for Victoria herself, I protected her with my Aura.
But for Shelia, the only way she can defeat them without touching is by slashing the air from distance. But this is an enclosed space.
Although the tree dungeon is huge, the inside is like a maze. It's quite cramped.
As for the maze, I can't see through everything, but enough to see where the dead end I should avoid.
Will I find treasure chest? It's been a while since the last time I found a treasure chest inside a dungeon. The last time was the fishnet stocking, I guess. And Sophie still wears it from time to time.
Since I can cut fire now, I don't need to wear it again. I'm already embarrassed when I remember that time after defeating the Giant Salamander, Victoria removed her transformation on my legs so I was seen wearing fishnet stocking back then. Good thing she didn't remove the mask.
I easily defeated the zombies. And Shelia also did well.
She can control her slash to be as small as possible and only target one enemy at a time. That's a good control of her power. If I compared her to back then when she fought Angela, she is much much stronger now.
Although Angela herself is still getting stronger. I won't know who will be the winner if they fight again seriously.
"Oh, there's a treasure chest! It's a dead end, but let's go there!"
I found a chest after we defeated the group of zombies and move forward for a while.
There's a monster guarding the chest, but it's just an orc. An orc zombie. Still not a challenge to me. I wonder how deep should I go so I can reach advanced level?
"What's in it? What's in it?" Spot asked curiously.
"Hmm… it's just a bunch of magic stones. Let's take them home and share it with the others."
The inside of the chest are all magic stones used for cultivating. Some of them are the familiar air element. I can make them on my own, so I don't really need them. though maybe the quality is much better than the ones I made. I'll just take them home for now.
"It's a bit disappointing, but at least we found something. Hopefully, the next chest will give us something better," I said.
This is one weird dungeon.
The entrance of the dungeon is close to the ground, and we need to go up to go deeper.
But, once we enter it all the way up, we need to go down. Deep down to the underground.
We're still climbing up, so I don't know what we could find.
I can barely see that right under the tree, it's hollow. Probably that's where we will go through to enter underground.
For now, we will explore the dungeon. Going underground can be done later. It's not like we have to finish everything by today.
"Let's take our time exploring the dungeon and grab all the treasures. Clearing the dungeon can take time. Even after over five hundred years, there's nothing happening to the elves' village after all," I said.
"Yeah. I can't bear to stay here for more than one day. We will leave using portal once we're done for the day, right?" Shelia asked.
"…" I didn't answer.
"I know you're just teasing me. I won't fall for that trick!" Shelia proclaimed.
I guess she's not as innocent as she was back when she became my summon. It's no longer fun to tease her anymore.
"Today, we will go all the way to the top. We will find a place that seems to be good for me to mark with a Blobby, and then use portal to go to where Lina is. We'll go back home together after that," I said.
Although I look calm on the outside, I'm actually desperate to find a strong monster in this dungeon. I truly hope that I can increase my summoning level in this place since Monsters World is so big, and I don't know where to find other strong monsters